The name of Pierre Cauchon, Bishop of Beauvais, appears to us at this
long distance as arising out of the infernal mists, into which, when his
ministry of shame was accomplished, he disappeared again, bearing with
him nothing but hatred and ill fame. Yet in his own day and to his
contemporaries, he was not an inconsiderable man. He was of Rheims,
a great student, and excellent scholar, the friend of many good men,
highly esteemed among the ranks of the learned, a good man of business,
which is not always the attribute of a scholar, and at the same time a
Burgundian of pronounced sentiments, holding for his Duke, against the
King. When Beauvais was summoned by Charles, after his coronation, at
that moment of universal triumph when all seemed open for him to march
upon Paris if he would, the city had joyfully thrown open its doors to
the royal army, and in doing so had driven out its Bishop, who was hot
on the other side. He would not seem to have been wanted in Paris at
that moment. The "triste Bedford," as Michelet calls him, had no means
of employing an ambitious priest, no dirty work for the moment to give
him. It is natural to suppose that a man so admirably adapted for that
employment went in search of it to the ecclesiastical court, not
beloved of England, which the Cardinal Bishop of Winchester held there.
Winchester was the only one of the House of Lancaster who had money to
carry on the government either at home or abroad. The two priests,
as the historians are always pleased to insinuate in respect to
ecclesiastics, soon understood each other, and Winchester became aware
that he had in Cauchon a tool ready for any shameful enterprise. It is
not, however, necessary to assume so much as this, for we have not the
least reason to believe that either one or the other of them had the
slightest doubt on the subject of Jeanne, or as to her character. She
was a pernicious witch, filling a hitherto invincible army with that
savage fright which is but too well understood among men, and which
produces cruel outrages as well as cowardly panic. The air of this very
day, while I write, is ringing with the story of a woman burnt to death
by her own family under the influence of that same horrible panic and
terror. Cauchon was the countryman, almost the _pays_--an untranslatable
expression,--of Jeanne; but he did not believe in her any more than the
loftier ecclesiastics of France believed in Bernadette of Lourdes,
who was of the spiritual lineage of Jeanne, nor than we should believe
to-day in a similar pretender. It seems unnecessary then to think of
dark plots hatched between these two dark priests against the white,
angelic apparition of the Maid.
What services Cauchon had done to recommend him to the favour of
Winchester we are not told, but he was so much in favour that the
Cardinal had recommended him to the Pope for the vacant archbishopric
of Rouen a few months before there was any immediate question of Jeanne.
The appointment was opposed by the clergy of Rouen, and the Pope had not
come to any decision as yet on the subject. But no doubt the ambition of
Cauchon made him very eager, with such a tempting prize before him, to
recommend himself to his English patron by every means in his power. And
he it was who undertook the office of negotiating the ransom of Jeanne
from the hands of Jean de Luxembourg. We doubt whether after all it
would be just even to call this a nefarious bargain. To the careless
seigneur it would probably be very much a matter of course. The ransom
offered--six thousand francs--was as good as if she had been a prince.
The ladies at home might be indignant, but what was their foolish fancy
for a high-flown girl in comparison with these substantial crowns in his
pocket; and to be free from the responsibility of guarding her would be
an advantage too. And if her own party did not stir on her behalf, why
should he? A most pertinent question. Cauchon, on the other hand, could
assure all objectors that no summary vengeance was to be taken on
the Maid. She was to be judged by the Church, and by the best men the
University could provide, and if she were found innocent, no doubt would
go free.
They must have been sanguine indeed who hoped for a triumphant acquittal
of Jeanne; but still it may have been hoped that a trial by her
countrymen would in every case be better for her than to languish in
prison or to be seized perhaps by the English on some after occasion,
and to perish by their hands. Let us therefore be fair to Cauchon, if
possible, up to the beginning of the _Procès_. He was no Frenchman,
but a Burgundian; his allegiance was to his Duke, not to the King of
England; but his natural sovereign did so, and many, very many men of
note and importance were equally base, and did not esteem it base at
all. Had the inhabitants of Rheims, his native town, or of Rouen,
in which _his_ trial and downfall took place as well as Jeanne's,
pronounced for the King of Prussia in the last war, and proclaimed
themselves his subjects, the traitors would have been hung with infamy
from their own high towers, or driven into their river headlong. But
things were very different in the fifteenth century. There has never
been a moment in our history when either England or Scotland has
pronounced for a foreign sway. Scotland fought with desperation for
centuries against the mere name of suzerainty, though of a kindred race.
There have been terrible moments of forced subjugation at the point of
the sword; but never any such phenomena as appeared in France, so far
on in the world's history as was that brilliant and highly cultured
age. Such a state of affairs is to our minds impossible to understand
or almost to believe: but in the interests of justice it must be fully
acknowledged and understood.
Cauchon arises accordingly, not at first with any infamy, out of the
obscurity. He had been expelled and dethroned from his See, but this
only for political reasons. He was ecclesiastically Bishop of Beauvais
still; it was within his diocese that the Maid had taken prisoner, and
there also her last acts of magic, if magic there was, had taken place.
He had therefore a legal right to claim the jurisdiction, a right which
no one had any interest in taking from him. If Paris was disappointed
at not having so interesting a trial carried on before its courts, there
was compensation in the fact that many doctors of the University were
called to assist Cauchon in his examination of the Maid, and to bring
her, witch, sorceress, heretic, whatever she might be, to question.
These doctors were not undistinguished or unworthy men. A number of them
held high office in the Church; almost all were honourably connected
with the University, the source of learning in France. "With what art
were they chosen!" exclaims M. Blaze de Bury. "A number of theologians,
the élite of the time, had been named to represent France at the council
of Bâle; of these Cauchon chose the flower." This does not seem on the
face of it to be a fact against, but rather in favour of, the tribunal,
which the reader naturally supposes must have been the better, the more
just, for being chosen among the flower of learning in France. They were
not men who could be imagined to be the tools of any Bishop. Quicherat,
in his moderate and able remarks on this subject, selects for special
mention three men who took a very important part in it, Guillame Érard,
Nicole Midi, and Tomas de Courcelles. They were all men who held a high
place in the respect of their generation. Érard was a friend of Machet,
the confessor of Charles VII., who had been a member of the tribunal
at Poitiers which first pronounced upon the pretensions of Jeanne; yet
after the trial of the Maid Machet still describes him as a man of the
highest virtue and heavenly wisdom. Nicole Midi continued to hold an
honourable place in his University for many years, and was the man
chosen to congratulate Charles when Paris finally became again the
residence of the King. Courcelles was considered the first theologian of
the age. "He was an austere and eloquent young man," says Quicherat,
"of a lucid mind, though nourished on abstractions. He was the first of
theologians long before he had attained the age at which he could assume
the rank of doctor, and even before he had finished his studies he was
considered as the successor of Gerson. He was the light of the council
of Bâle. Eneas Piccolomini (Pope Pius II.) speaks with admiration of his
capacity and his modesty. In him we recognise the father of the freedom
of the Gallican Church. His disinterestedness is shown by the simple
position with which he contented himself. He died with no higher rank
than that of Dean of the Chapter of Paris."
Did this in Cæsar seem ambitious? Was this the man to be used for
their vile ends by a savage English party thirsting for the blood of an
innocent victim, and by the vile priest who was its tool? It does not
seem so to our eyes across the long level of the centuries which clear
away so many mists. And no more dreadful accusation can be brought
against France than the suggestion that men like these, her best and
most carefully trained, were willing to act as blood-hounds for
the advantage and the pay of the invader. But there are many French
historians to whom the mere fact of a black gown or at least an
ecclesiastical robe, confounds every testimony, and to whom even the
name of Frenchman does not make it appear possible that a priest should
retain a shred of honour or of honesty. We should have said by the light
of nature and probability that had every guarantee been required for the
impartiality and justice of such a tribunal, they could not have
been better secured than by the selection of such men to conduct its
proceedings. They made a great and terrible mistake, as the wisest
of men have made before now. They did much worse, they behaved to an
unfortunate girl who was in their power with indescribable ferocity and
cruelty; but we must hope that this was owing to the period at which
they lived rather than to themselves.
It is not perhaps indeed from the wise and learned, the Stoics and
Pundits of a University, that we should choose judges for the divine
simplicity of those babes and sucklings out of whose mouth praise is
perfected. At the same time to choose the best men is not generally the
way adopted to procure a base judgement. Cauchon might have been subject
to this blame had he filled the benches of his court with creatures of
his own, nameless priests and dialecticians, knowing nothing but
their own poor science of words. He did not do so. There were but two
Englishmen in the assembly, neither of them men of any importance or
influence although there must have been many English priests in the
country and in the train of Winchester. There were not even any special
partisans of Burgundy, though some of the assessors were Burgundian by
birth. We should have said, had we known no more than this, that every
precaution had been taken to give the Maid the fairest trial. But at the
same time a trial which is conducted under the name of the Inquisition
is always suspect. The mere fact of that terrible name seems to
establish a foregone conclusion; few are the prisoners at that bar who
have ever escaped. This fact is almost all that can be set against the
high character of the individuals who composed the tribunal. At all
events it is no argument against the English that they permitted the
best men in France to be chosen as Jeanne's judges. It is the most
bewildering and astonishing of historical facts that they were so, and
yet came to the conclusion they did, by the means they did, and that
without falling under the condemnation, or scorn, or horror of their
fellow-men.
This then was the assembly which gathered in Rouen in the beginning of
1431. Quicherat will not venture to affirm even that intimidation was
directly employed to effect their decision. He says that the evidence
"tends to prove" that this was the case, but honestly allows that, "it
is well to remark that the witnesses contradict each other." "In all
that I have said," he adds, "my intention has been to prove that the
judges of the Maid had in no way the appearance of partisans hotly
pursuing a political vengeance; but that, on the contrary, their known
weight, the consideration which most of them enjoyed, and the nature
of the tribunal for which they were assembled, were all calculated to
produce generally an expectation full of confidence and respect."
Meanwhile there is not a word to be said for the treatment to which
Jeanne herself was subjected, she being, so far as is apparent, entirely
in English custody. She had been treated with tolerable gentleness it
would seem in the first part of her captivity while in the hands of Jean
de Luxembourg, the Count de Ligny. The fact that the ladies of the house
were for her friends must have assured this, and there is no complaint
made anywhere of cruelty or even unkindness. When she arrived in Rouen
she was confined in the middle chamber of the donjon, which was the best
we may suppose, neither a dungeon under the soil, nor a room under the
leads, but one to which there was access by a short flight of steps from
the courtyard, and which was fully lighted and not out of reach or sight
of life. But in this chamber was an iron cage,(1) within which she was
bound, feet, and waist and neck, from the time of her arrival until
the beginning of the trial, a period of about six weeks. Five English
soldiers of the lowest class watched her night and day, three in the
room itself, two at the door. It is enough to think for a moment of the
probable manners and morals of these troopers to imagine what torture
must have been inflicted by their presence upon a young woman who had
always been sensitive above all things to the laws of personal modesty
and reserve. Their course jests would no doubt be unintelligible to
her, which would be an alleviation; but their coarse laughter, their
revolting touch, their impure looks, would be an endless incessant
misery. We are told that she indignantly bestowed a hearty buffet on the
cheek of a tailor who approached her too closely when it was intended
to furnish her with female dress; but she was helpless to defend herself
when in her irons, and had to endure as she best could--the bars of
her cage let us hope, if cage there was, affording her some little
protection from the horror of the continual presence of these rude
attendants, with whom it was a shame to English gentlemen and knights to
surround a helpless woman.
When her trial began Jeanne was released from her cage, but was still
chained by one foot to a wooden beam during the day, and at night to the
posts of her bed. Sometimes her guards would wake her to tell her that
she had been condemned and was immediately to be led forth to execution;
but that was a small matter. Attempts were also made to inflict the
barest insult and outrage upon her, and on one occasion she is said to
have been saved only by the Earl of Warwick, who heard her cries and
went to her rescue. By night as by day she clung to her male garb,
tightly fastened by the innumerable "points" of which Shakespeare so
often speaks. Such were the horrible circumstances in which she awaited
her public appearance before her judges. She was brought before them
every day for months together, to be badgered by the keenest wits in
France, coming back and back with artful questions upon every detail
of every subject, to endeavour to shake her firmness or force her into
self-contradiction. Imagine a cross-examination going on for months,
like those--only more cruel than those--to which we sometimes see an
unfortunate witness exposed in our own courts of law. There is nothing
more usual than to see people break down entirely after a day or two
of such a tremendous ordeal, in which their hearts and lives are turned
inside out, their minds so bewildered that they know not what they are
saying, and everything they have done in their lives exhibited in the
worst, often in an entirely fictitious, light, to the curiosity and
amusement of the world.
But all our processes are mercy in comparison with those to which French
prisoners at the bar are still exposed. It is unnecessary to enter into
an account of these which are so well known; but they show that even
such a trial as that of Jeanne was by no means so contrary to common
usage, as it would be, and always would have been in England. In England
we warn the accused to utter no rash word which may be used against him;
in France the first principle is to draw from him every rash word that
he can be made to bring forth. This was the method employed with Jeanne.
Her judges were all Churchmen and dialecticians of the subtlest wit
and most dexterous faculties in France; they had all, or almost all, a
strong prepossession against her. Though we cannot believe that men of
such quality were suborned, there was, no doubt, enough of jealous and
indignant feeling among them to make the desire of convicting Jeanne
more powerful with them than the desire for pure justice. She was a true
Christian, but not perhaps the soundest of Church-women. Her visions had
not the sanction of any priest's approval, except indeed the official
but not warm affirmation of the Council at Poitiers. She had not
hastened to take the Church into her confidence nor to put herself under
its protection. Though her claims had been guaranteed by the company
of divines at Poitiers, she herself had always appealed to her private
instructions, through her saints, rather than to the guiding of any
priest. The chief ecclesiastical dignitary of her own party had just
held her up to the reprobation of the people for this cause: she was too
independent, so proud that she would take no advice but acted according
to her own will. The more accustomed a Churchman is to experience
the unbounded devotion and obedience of women, the more enraged he is
against those who judge for themselves or have other guides on whom
they rely. Jeanne was, beside all other sins alleged against her, a
presumptuous woman: and very few of these men had any desire to acquit
her. They were little accustomed to researches which were solely
intended to discover the truth: their principle rather was, as it has
been the principle of many, to obtain proofs that their own particular
way of thinking was the right one. It is not perhaps very good even for
a system of doctrine when this is the principle by which it is tested.
It is more fatal still, on this principle, to judge an individual for
death or for life. It will be abundantly proved, however, by all that is
to follow, that in face of this tribunal, learned, able, powerful, and
prejudiced, the peasant girl of nineteen stood like a rock, unmoved
by all their cleverness, undaunted by their severity, seldom or never
losing her head, or her temper, her modest steadfastness, or her high
spirit. If they hoped to have an easy bargain of her, never were men
more mistaken. Not knowing a from b, as she herself said, untrained,
unaided, she was more than a match for them all.
Round about this centre of eager intelligence, curiosity, and prejudice,
the cathedral and council chamber teeming with Churchmen, was a dark and
silent ring of laymen and soldiers. A number of the English leaders were
in Rouen, but they appear very little. Winchester, who had very
lately come from England with an army, which according to some of the
historians would not budge from Calais, where it had landed, "for fear
of the Maid"--was the chief person in the place, but did not make any
appearance at the trial, curiously enough; the Duke of Bedford we are
informed was visible on one shameful occasion, but no more. But Warwick,
who was the Governor of the town, appears frequently and various other
lords with him. We see them in the mirror held up to us by the French
historians, pressing round in an ever narrowing circle, closing up upon
the tribunal in the midst, pricking the priests with perpetual sword
points if they seem to loiter. They would have had everything pushed on,
no delay, no possibility of escape. It is very possible that this was
the case, for it is evident that the Witch was deeply obnoxious to the
English, and that they were eager to have her and her endless process
out of the way; but the evidence for their terror and fierce desire to
expedite matters is of the feeblest. A canon of Rouen declared at the
trial that he had heard it said by Maître Pierre Morice, and Nicolas
l'Oyseleur, judges assessors, and by other whose names he does not
recollect, "that the said English were so afraid of her that they did
not dare to begin the siege of Louviers until she was dead; and that it
was necessary if one would please them, to hasten the trial as much as
possible and to find the means of condemning her." Very likely this was
quite true: but it cannot at all be taken for proved by such evidence.
Another contemporary witness allows that though some of the English
pushed on her trial for hate, some were well disposed to her; the manner
of Jeanne's imprisonment is the only thing which inclines the reader to
believe every evil thing that is said against them.
Such were the circumstances in which Jeanne was brought to trail. The
population, moved to pity and to tears as any population would
have been, before the end, would seem at the beginning to have been
indifferent and not to have taken much interest one way or another: the
court, a hundred men and more with all their hangers-on, the cleverest
men in France, one more distinguished and impeccable than the others:
the stern ring of the Englishmen outside keeping an eye upon the tedious
suit and all its convolutions: these all appear before us, surrounding
as with bands of iron the young lonely victim in the donjon, who
submitting to every indignity, and deprived of every aid, feeling that
all her friends had abandoned her, yet stood steadfast and strong in
her absolute simplicity and honesty. It was but two years in that same
spring weather since she had left Vaucouleurs to seek the fortune of
France, to offer herself to the struggle which now was coming to an end.
Not a soul had Jeanne to comfort or stand by her. She had her saints
who--one wonders if such a thought ever entered into her young visionary
head--had lured her to her doom, and who still comforted her with
enigmatical words, promises which came true in so sadly different a
sense from that in which they were understood.
(1) We are glad to add that the learned Quicherat has doubts
on the subject of the cage.